Broken (20 page)

“
You really think this is
a good idea? After what he did the last time?” She asked raising
her voice.

“Mom, you don’t even know what happened
last time.”

“I don’t need to know what happened
because I saw the aftermath. You locked yourself in your bedroom
for three goddamn months, Leila!” I cringed at her words, and my
mind wandered to the night my downward spiral began.

Garrett had become more
and more distant. I was doing everything in my power to cheer him
up. I planned picnics in the park, surprised him with cooking him
dinner. I even offered to go see a Drop Kick Murphy’s concert with
him. Nothing would bring him back to me.

All he wanted to do was
sit in his room and smoke cigarettes. I would go over and make
excuses to his mother for his behavior telling her he was having a
tough day at work or that we had gotten into an argument. But he
slowly closed himself off from everyone, especially me. If he
wasn’t sitting in his room, he was out drinking with his friends.
He made every excuse in the book not to see me, and I was dying
inside.

I stopped by his house one
night after my babysitting job. I hadn’t told him I was coming
because I knew he would make an excuse for me not to come over.
But, I needed to see him. As I walked into his room, he was lying
on his bed with his eyes closed, a cigarette in his mouth and ear
buds in his ears. His face was red and his eyes were puffy as if
he’d been crying. I took his hand and sat on the bed next to him.
As I looked at him, I noticed his lip was split and his knuckles
were all cut up.

He jumped a mile. “Jesus,
you don’t knock,” he snapped as he wiped his cheek. I could smell
alcohol on his breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I had to,” I said
softly.

“
Well, that would be the
polite thing for you to do. What if I wasn’t alone?” He said
coldly.

“
What is that supposed to
mean?” A sick feeling began to fall over me. “What happened to your
lip and hands?”

“
Nothing, I got into a
fight,” he mumbled as he quickly jerked his hand from
mine.

“A fight? You got in a
fight?” I said raising my voice.

“Yeah, I got in a fight,”
he said as he sat up abruptly. “Why are you here?”

“I missed you,” I said
sadly.

“You shouldn’t be here. I’m
not in the mood.”

I hung my head. “Are you
ever going to forgive me? I’m sorry.”

“Save it! I don’t want to
hear it. You should have thought about that when you snuck behind
my back and killed our baby,” he snapped.

His words felt like a
punch in the stomach. I almost wished he would just hit me. At
least, the pain would eventually go away. His words hurt so much
more. He was angry and resentful for what I’d done. Nicole had
taken me to the clinic and I’d gone behind his back. He didn’t
understand that a baby would ruin my chances of going to college.
It was so important to me and to my mom. I would be the first
member of my family to attend college.

I began to cry, “Garrett,
please.”

“You don’t get to cry! You
made your choice!” He yelled.

Then he went crazy. He
began punching the walls, he threw our pictures that were on his
dresser on the floor and stomped on them. “This is us, Leila! We
are broken, we can’t be fixed.”

I was terrified. I had
never seen him this angry before. His words were so full of hate. I
felt the tears streaming down my cheeks.

He fell to the floor
sobbing. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t look at you without
hating you. This is killing me. I love you, but I can’t pretend I’m
okay. . . That we are okay.” He was shaking.

I tried to console him,
but he pushed me away. “Leila . . . It’s over. We’re over. You need
to leave.”

The memory made me shudder. I was so
deep in thought I hadn’t even realized my mother was now sitting
next to me. Her hand on my shoulder snapped me out of my
memory.

“
Leila, you
okay?”

Sadness ran through me, and I shrugged
her hand off my shoulder. “Mom, there is something I need to tell
you. Something I should have told you a long time ago.” I hung my
head in shame.

“
What is it? You are
scaring me,” my mother whispered.

As I took a huge deep breath and
exhaled, “There really is no easy way to say this. Please let me
tell you everything before you go flying off the
handle.”

“
Okay.”

“
The reason Garrett left
me was because I had an abortion.”

I clenched my eyes closed waiting for
my mother’s reaction. There was nothing. I slowly opened my eyes to
see her reaction, a look of pure shock appeared on her
face.

“
I couldn’t tell anyone .
. . Least of all you. I didn’t want to disappoint you. You had such
high hopes of me going to college. How could I throw
our
hopes and dreams
away by having a baby,” my voice began to waver. I was staring at
my feet, when I felt my mother take my hand in hers. I lifted my
head to look at her.

“
Keep going,” she said in
a very soft and gentle tone.

“
Nicole took me to a
clinic. Garrett had no idea I was going. I lied to him and told him
I was sick with the flu. I knew if I told him, he would try to talk
me out of it. He wanted me to keep the baby.”

I took another deep breath and
exhaled. “Every day I spoke to him. I felt so guilty for what I had
done. It was eating away at me. When I finally confessed to him
what I had done he went crazy. I tried to explain to him about
college, but he didn’t understand.” I felt a tear roll down my
cheek, and I tried to blink back the rest of the tears that were
pooling in my eyes.

My mother squeezed my hand tightly.
“Leila… I wish you would have told me. We could have sat down and
figured something out. I can’t believe you didn’t come to me. Just
thinking of you going through that all alone and carrying around
this guilt, it breaks my heart. No wonder you locked yourself in
your room.”

I saw a single tear run down my
mother’s cheek.

“
Please, don’t cry, Mom. I
have been working through my guilt with Helen. I now have a chance
to right my wrongs. Please, give me your blessing to marry,
Garrett. I love him and he loves me. I feel like we are getting a
second chance. Please. . .” I paused for a moment. “I want you to
walk me down the aisle,” I pleadeed. “You don’t have to give me an
answer right now, think about it,” I said as I got up from the
couch. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.”

As I drove home, my mind was racing
with memories from that night. I couldn’t shake his words from my
head. I knew deep down inside we needed to deal with this before we
got married. This was not something we could ignore.

As I walked through the door to my
apartment, I threw my purse and keys on the kitchen
counter.

“
Garrett?” I
yelled.

“
I’m in the
bedroom.”

I walked through my bedroom door and
he jumped from the bed. He could see I was visibly shaken. “What’s
wrong? It went that bad?” He asked.

“
Well, it could’ve gone
worse. I told her . . . Everything,” I half smiled. “But, we really
need to talk.”

“
What’s the matter, Babe?
You look upset,” he said, worried.

“
I’m just . . . My mother
brought up everything that happened between us. It stirred up
memories from the night you ended things.” I held his hands
tightly. “I need to know you are now ok with my decision and you’re
not trying to patch some hole in your heart. I don’t want you to
wake up and resent me ten years down the road.”

“
I’m sorry for everything
I said and did that day. I handled it horribly. Believe me, Babe.
If I could take it all back I would. I now understand why you did
what you did. Though, I wish you would have told me.” He hugged me
tightly like he was never going to let me go. “I love you, I’ve
always loved you.”

“
I love you too, but I
feel like we need to move on from this. I want you to come see
Helen with me. She really has helped me these last few
months.”

He rested his forehead against mine,
gently kissing my lips. “I will do anything you want me to do,
anything.

Chapter
1
7

I placed a call to Helen on Monday
morning explaining everything that had happened over the weekend.
She was thrilled I had finally told my mother about the abortion
and was very enthusiastic about including Garrett in our next
session. She did need to move my appointment time to accommodate
Garrett’s schedule, but we were all set to meet on
Thursday.

The week seemed to drag by, and I was
becoming nervous about Garrett actually attending the session. I
wasn’t sure what was going to happen or how he was going to feel
about Helen. Helen can be very blunt at times, and she doesn’t hold
anything back, which is one of the reasons why I really like her. I
really needed someone to be direct and honest with me.

Garrett showed up at my place around
4:30, and we headed to Helen’s. Neither of us said much on the ride
there. I was beginning to feel a bit nauseous. I took a deep breath
and gently took Garrett’s hand. I quickly glanced over to him and
gave him a nervous smile.

“
You okay, Babe,” he
said.

“
Yah, I’m fine just a
little nervous for you to meet Helen.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m really not sure. I
guess because Helen has been my safe haven for the last few months,
and I can pretty much say anything and everything without being
judged. This is the first time someone else will be in our
session.”

He squeezed my hand tightly. “Babe,
you can say anything in front of me. I can handle it.”

Even though he said this to me, I was
still unsure. We had never really talked about the abortion. I know
how much I had hurt him, and I needed to know he had forgiven me,
so we could move forward.

Helen greeted us as we walked into the
reception area of her office. “Hello, Garrett. I’m Helen. I’m very
happy to meet you,” she said extending her hand to him.

“
It’s nice to finally meet
you, Helen. Leila has told me a lot about you.”

“
All good things I hope,”
she said with a smile. “Why don’t the two of you come into my
office and have a seat.” She stood at the door directing us to
enter into her office.

I lead the way with Garrett following
behind me. I sat in my usual spot patting the cushion next to me
for Garrett to sit. Once we were both sitting Garrett took my hand
and squeezed it.

“
I don’t know why you are
so nervous,” he said quietly.

I gave him an uneasy smile and looked
at Helen.

“
So,” Helen said as she
sat in the chair directly across from us. “I would like to know
from both of you what you would like to accomplish in this
meeting.”

I looked nervously at Garrett trying
to read him. He didn’t seem to be phased at all.

“
Leila, let’s start with
you first since you know exactly how this works.”

“
Well, like I told you on
the phone I really would like to talk about what happened between
us four years ago. Neither of us has honestly discussed it.” My
stomach began to turn as the words left my mouth. I wasn’t really
sure I was going to be able to handle discussing this in front of
Garrett. I had just gotten used to telling Helen all of my deep
dark secrets. “And you Garrett?” Helen asked.

“
I agree with Leila, I
think we need to clear the air. She’s worried that I haven’t
forgiven her for what she did and she blames herself for my
accident.”

I winced at his words.
They felt like a slap across the face. The way he said
what she did.
Helen
seemed to notice the expression on my face and how I began to
nervously bite my fingernails. “Leila? Are you okay?”

Garrett quickly turned his attention
to me. “What’s the matter, Babe?”

Shaking my head I lowered it in shame.
“I’m not sure this was a good idea.”

“
Leila, I need to be
completely honest with you, if you two are truly going to have a
successful marriage you need to work through this. This is not
something you can just brush under the rug. You each need to listen
to one another and truly try to understand how each of you were
feeling at the time.” Helen paused briefly looking at both of us.
“I’m not going to lie, this is not going be easy, but if you can
work through it, you two will be able to get through
anything.”

I felt Garrett give my hand a little
squeeze and he lowered his head to my ear. “Babe, it’s okay, we are
going to get through this together. I promise. You remember what I
told you the other day? I meant what I said.”

I truly wanted to believe him, but
there was still doubt in the back of my mind. He had left me
before. Even though he vows he won’t do it again, I still can’t
shake the feeling he will.